Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney who once famously claimed he would “take a bullet” for his boss, pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress about a Trump real estate project in Russia in the latest development in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The president swiftly fired back, blasting Cohen as a “weak person,” and claiming his former attorney was “lying” to get a reduced sentence.

Cohen entered the plea in a surprise, 30-minute federal court appearance in New York City on Thursday. He pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, was not present in court on Thursday. Instead, he was represented by attorneys Guy Petrillo and Amy Lusker. [Read More]

It has not been a good November for the so-called “creepy porn lawyer” and 2020 Democratic hopeful Michael Avenatti. First he was arrested for a domestic violence charge from a former girlfriend and then had a restraining order filed against him from the same person. On Wednesday, client and porn star Stormy Daniels had apparently cut ties with him and called him out for filing lawsuits against her wishes. Despite this stunning turn of events, CBS and ABC couldn’t be bothered to mention it.

Surprisingly, NBC Nightly News was the only broadcast network program to report on the development. Perhaps it was because he burned NBC with his grotesquely smear against Justice Brett Kavanaugh via his client Julie Swetnick. NBC breathlessly reported the claims when they knew well in advance that they had no validity. The Senate Judiciary Committee then referred Avenatti and Swetnick to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. [Read More]

Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie, the authors of the blockbuster, Let Trump Be Trump: the Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency, are back with their next New York Times bestseller.

This book will reveal the heart of the hostile bureaucratic network that has been operating in the shadows until the American people voted Trump into office. Trump’s determination to transform the government, wipe out the swamp, and reduce the power of the bureaucratic machine has set him on a collision course with agencies populated by a workforce resistant to the American people’s agenda. [Read More]

Suicides and drug overdoses pushed up U.S. deaths last year, and drove a continuing decline in how long Americans are expected to live.

Overall, there were more than 2.8 million U.S. deaths in 2017, or nearly 70,000 more than the previous year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. It was the most deaths in a single year since the government began counting more than a century ago. [Read More]

CNN announced Thursday that it had fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill after he gave a speech at the United Nations in which he used language critics describe as a dog whistle advocating the elimination of Israel.

“Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” a spokesperson for the cable network told Fox News.

Hill had come under criticism for his remarks during a Wednesday meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. He accused the Israeli government of “normalizing settler colonialism” and called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a remark that got applause from participating diplomats. [Read More]